Rangers’ financial results have been released, and they provide some insight into Philippe Clement’s situation.
He would have understood that he was joining a club that wants to run a player trading model and that a large portion of his spending would have to come from sales.
With this in mind, who could Rangers sell in January and next summer so that Philippe Clement has the funds he needs to patch up a squad in need of repair.
Players Philippe Clement might sell to free up funds and Space
Sam Lammers
It’s stick or twist with the 26-year old Dutchman.
If he stays and sits on the bench, his value will depreciate and his next club will have no chance of any potential sell on value.
However, should Rangers decide to sell him, Philippe Clement should be able to recoup some of the £3m it was reportedly needed to sign him from Atalanta.
Ridvan Yilmaz
Personally, I’d play Ridvan and adapt to his lack of height when defending the back post purely because of what he offers in attack.
That his game time is restricted by a player who has been Croatia’s first choice left-back shouldn’t see his value drop too much either and he will still have plenty of teams interested in him.
Cyriel Dessers
Another one that, in a perfect world, Rangers get something close to what they paid for him and free up the money so that Philippe Clement can bring in someone more suitable for his style of play.
Unfortunately, it isn’t an ideal world and, approaching 29-years old, it looks like Rangers might be stuck with Dessers for the foreseeable future – in fairness though, his form is turning with three goals in his last four league games.
When you see who Rangers could have had for similar, or less money, it’s incredible that the £4.5m fee reported was sanctioned.
Ben Davies
He’s played well under Philippe Clement but there is an obvious replacement available in Scott McKenna and one who would add to the home-grown quota too.
Davies has an excellent reputation in the Championship and still has plenty of years left ahead of him as a centre-half.
This is the type of moving about that Rangers need to do, sell players who aren’t justifying their wage or their fee and replace them with ones that could and, ideally, can be signed on free transfers.
Rangers accounts were ok, but they certainly don’t suggest that Philippe Clement is going to be handed a blank cheque any time soon.
